As first reported by Mike Silva of NY Baseball Digest, LOOGY Deluxe Tim Byrdak has signed a contract extension with the Mets for next season. Seems Sandy Alderson would like to keep two lefties in the pen and so far Little LOOGY Danny (Give me a LOOGY with Hair, long beautiful Hair, shining, gleaming…..)Herrera is making his bid to be Byrdak’s stablemate.

How much does the stellar play of Ruben Tejeda play into the Mets maybe not going all out to re-sign Jose Reyes? I’m sure he will never admit it but I’d bet Sandy Alderson is praying that some dumb owner offers Reyes a ridiculous contract that he can’t match so he can use the $18-$20 mil on pitching.

What a schizo team we root for. They lose four games at home to the Nats and look like they packed it in for the year. The manager calls his team out saying they “folded up” and says “the fans are right to be angry” So they go into Atlanta, usually a house of horrors for the Mets and take 2 of 3 from a Braves team that needed to win these three games to keep the Cardinals and Giants off their heels. Amazing Mets indeed.

If it weren’t for the idiocy of Major League Baseball, all the talk last night and this morning would have been about the emotional and beautifully choreographed pre-game ceremony at Citi Field to honor the memory of the attack of September 11th and the first responders that gave their lives and the others who risked theirs to help others.

I was brought to tears seeing Mike Piazza lead a parade of heroes from the right field side of Citi Field and John Franco doing the same on the left field side. Then having the ball park lights dim for a moment of silence followed by a spine tingling rendition of the Star Spangled Banner by Marc Anthony. Franco and Piazza then took center stage in their snow white Mets uni tops with the words “9-11-01 we will never forget” embroidered on the sleeve just like it was 10 years ago, to deliver the first pitch of the game. In an eerie silence, Franco, a “Noo Yawk” guy through and through tossed a perfect strike to Piazza, the man who made the Mets relevant again. In fact what struck me about last night was how sad it was for two reasons, the first was what the commemoration of the evening was for of course, the other, it reminded me when the last time the Mets were a big deal in this town, that choked me up as well.

The Mets wore the same snow whites that they had on 9-21-11, the first sports event in NYC since the demise of the Twin Towers, but on their heads that night were the caps of the FDNY, NYPD, and PAPD the three groups the club had become very close to due to their working side by side during the awful aftermath of the attack. At the time MLB said the Mets couldn’t wear those caps during a major league game and the Mets in turn led by Bobby Valentine told MLB to kiss their New York City ass, we’re wearing them. What did MLB do? Nothing, just like every other bully that is stood up to. The Mets wore the first responder caps and celebrated in those caps when Mike Piazza, he of the NYPD batting helmet as well, hit his home run that put a smile on faces that thought they’d never smile again. It was not just a classic NY moment or one the best moments in Mets history it showed that baseball, just like during all of the countries dark times, came through once again, it always does, its what makes baseball the great pastime it is.

The Mets of 2011 asked MLB if they could have permission to wear the hats of the first responders again as they did 10 years ago. MLB said no, just like they did 10 years ago. This time though the Mets rolled over, scared to take a stand. There was no Valentine, or Franco, or Ventura, or Zeile on the team to tell MLB to take their no cap memo and shove it up their tight ass’s. The players thought about ignoring the order but claimed the organization would have been severely punished if they did. If the Mets banded together and wore the caps, what was MLB going to do? Absolutely nothing. Again to beat the bully you need to stand up to the bully.

I don’t know if I’ve told this story here but if I did I apologize but I think it should be told here. As I’ve mention on numerous occasions, I manage a 14-15 year old Babe Ruth Team on Staten Island. During the heat wave of the summer, a day that was 97 degrees, I had scheduled a practice. We try to have at least one practice a week during the season to work on some deficiencies and to go over the pitching rotation for the upcoming games. We also take a round of infield/outfield drills and batting practice, in all it runs about two hours. The place we like to practice is Miller Field in the New Dorp section as it was a one time air base during WWII and has plenty of fields to choose from. Now because of the heat I was ready to cancel practice and let the boys enjoy their pools or whatever they were doing to stay cool. Every kid that I called said, “ah coach it ain’t that hot we can practice” my son told me he was getting texts from some players asking him to convince me to hold practice. What could I do? They want to play, fine let’s go practice. So with the equipment and a case of water, off to Miller Field we go. We were the only people in the park. Acres of land at our disposal. As we were half way through batting practice a federal parks department employee pulls up to the field asking “who is in charge here”? “ Well, that would be me”, “do you have a permit to play here” Ms. Fed asks. “A permit? For what? To play baseball”? “Yes” she said, “Ah no” I say “Well, she says then you will have to leave”.

After I stopped laughing I ask here to clear her cart from the pitcher’s mound so we could continue to play. Again she ask me if this was an organized team and where was our permit and on and on really annoying the living shit out of me. I told her the organization we played for and that we had permits to play games here but being a programed bureaucrat all she knew was I didn’t have permit for the field and I had to leave. At this point I asked her what her title was and she rattled off some administrative rank, I then told her to call someone with authority to make me leave, like the Federal Park Police, and while I wait for the police to come, we will continue to play baseball.

Well, instead of calling the police, she called her supervisor who in turn called the league president who had to come down to the park to make me leave the park. So while I’m being screamed at with threats, I told my assistant coach, to continue with the practice this way I’ll go argue with these women long enough for all the players get their batting practice swings. For a good half hour, we argued back in forth about the lack of common sense being applied here, which was enough time for the team to finish practice. When the coach told me practice was over, I thanked the ladies and said “yeah you know what, your right we don’t belong here, we’ll leave”.

I didn’t give a shit about the two Federal Flunkies but the woman who ran the league was so mad at me she stopped talking to me. It didn’t bother me in the least, you know why? She couldn’t do anything to me, what could she do, tell me I can’t manage the team anymore? No. Luckily I had all the parents of the kids behind me 100 %. That’s why I took the stand. I knew there was nothing anyone was going to do to me to make me regret my decision.

As I told the Feds, this will make a great story in the Staten Island Advance “Youth Coach and kids Thrown out of Park For Playing Ball” or maybe one of the local TV stations would love to expose the story, I had me some bullets in my gun. Sometimes you have to take a stand.

That is what has me pissed off at the Mets, especially David Wright. If Wright led the way and wore the NYPD cap he wore in the dugout on the field what was MLB going to do? NOTHING! If the whole Mets team would have worn the caps on the field what was MLB going to do? NOTHING!

The bad publicity from this should be a huge embarrassment to MLB and I can’t believe no one in the P.R. department didn’t beg Bud Selig or Clueless Joe Torre, who by the way showed is true colors as a big time phony, to let the Mets wear the caps.

You know what in the long run maybe MLB was right did it really matter if the Mets wore the first responder caps? No one was watching anyway, especially with the Jets-Cowboys game on NBC.

Enjoy those single digit post season ratings in the post season Bud, you douchebag.

It looks like John Franco wants to get back in uniform with the Mets, no not as a player but as a coach. Franco said in today’s NY Post, that he would love to join the club as a mentor to Bobby Parnell, which I feel would help Parnell immensely and if Franco is sincere as I’m sure he is, instead of telling this to a newspaper reporter, why not approach Sandy Alderson and Terry Collins with this idea.

When Collins was told of Franco’s wish he said “I’ll try and set that up”. One of the things Collins told me during the winter was he told his coaching staff if you see something that you thing in a player or in a way the club is going about it’s business the needs fixing, you should speak up and let’s look at it as a staff. So if John Franco feels he can help Bobby Parnell get his mindset right to be a closer and help him develop an off speed pitch to go with his supersonic fastball, Collins would definitely be on board for that.

I love Howard Johnson, his combination of speed and power makes him one of the best players to wear a Mets uniform, but really HoJo it’s time to shut the fuck up. As Mike Silva tells us, Johnson has taken to Twitter to bash Mets management claiming they are anti-86 Mets. As Silva points out there are a number of ex-86ers that work for the team, and the Mets gave HoJo a shot at being a manager and he failed and they handed him the job as the big league batting coach and many feel he’s ruined David Wright with his tinkering of his swing. So really HoJo stop the whining you’re starting to sound like a bitter ex-wife.

Took a day off from blogging and social media to celebrate my son’s birthday by spending the day in the city and taking in a performance of Spider Man Turn Off The Dark. The show itself was entertaining it’s no Guys and Dolls but hey what is! I was disappointed in the music since Bono and The Edge wrote the score and the only song I really enjoyed was when Patrick Page, who really saves this show as his role as Green Goblin was the highlight of the performance, sings A Freak Like Me Needs Company to open a second act that salvaged the show for me. The high flying Spider Man and Green Goblin scenes are spectacular as is the make up job doen on Page as the Green Goblin . Just the fact that Spidey made it this far on Broadway is an accomplishment.

On to the Mets, in no particular order:

The news that John Franco and Mike Piazza will be the participants in the first pitch of the game on September 11th and the Mets will wear caps of the first responders of that tragic day, will help bring some joy to Mets fans on what should be proclaimed a National Day of Mourning. It’s still hard to believe that it will be 10 years since the attack, of all the scenes of carnage and despair of that day, the vision of seeing the smoke smoldering from the wreckage of the Towers, from my bedroom window still haunts me.

When I first heard about Howard Johnson playing for the Rockland Boulders this weekend so he could join his son Glen I thought it was a silly stunt but then I thought it’s an Independent League so really who cares?

Jason Bay to center field? Flanked by #ImWith28 and The Dude? Better find some pitchers with a high GB/FB ratio.

Safe to say something will happen with the dimensions of the Great Wall of Flushing, like cutting the wall in half to 8 ft. I’ve stood on the warning track under that Great Wall and that is some rarified air up there. Bringing in the fences is not needed but an 8 ft left field wall will make a big improvement and hopefully help the stigma that David Wright and Jason Bay seem to have with the wall.

Second baseman Roberto Alomar and starting pitcher Bert Blyleven were named today as the recommended 2011 Hall of Fame class by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.

Alomar, who is on the ballot for his second year, and Blyleven, looking at his fourteenth time, both finished just shy of the BBA’s recommendation in 2010 at just a fraction under the 75% threshold. As was the case last year, both Alomar and Blyleven received the same amount of votes from the BBA membership in 2010, but this time it was enough to push them into the recommended status.

Both players received 117 votes out of the 154 ballots cast, resulting in a 75.97% approval rate. Again echoing the vote taken at the end of 2009, shortstop Barry Larkin was the third man in the balloting, missing selection by being named on just 70.78% of the ballots.

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance’s vote has no impact on the official vote taken by the Baseball Writers of America and the members of the Hall of Fame. However, the BBA has been often a predictor of awards granted by the writers, matching their selection in fourteen of the sixteen major awards in the last two postseasons combined.

The final voting results are as follows:

Roberto Alomar, 75.97%

Bert Blyleven, 75.97%

Barry Larkin, 70.78%

Jeff Bagwell, 62.34%

Edgar Martinez, 59.09%

Tim Raines, 54.55%

Mark McGwire, 44.16%

Lee Smith, 38.96%

Alan Trammell, 35.71%

Don Mattingly, 33.12%

Larry Walker, 31.17%

Fred McGriff, 27.27%

Jack Morris, 25.97%

Rafael Palmerio, 20.78%

Dale Murphy, 16.23%

Dave Parker, 12.34%

Harold Baines, 10.39%

Kevin Brown, 9.09%

John Franco, 7.14%

Tino Martinez, 5.19%

John Olerud, 5.19%

Al Leiter, 4.55%

Bret Boone, 3.90%

Juan Gonzalez, 3.90%

Marquis Grissom, 2.60%

Benito Santiago, 1.30%

Bobby Higginson, 0.65%

Charles Johnson, 0.65%

Kirk Rueter, 0.65%

Carlos Baerga, 0.00%

Raul Mondesi, 0.00%

BJ Surhoff, 0.00%

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was established in the fall of 2009 for the purpose of fostering collaboration and communication among bloggers from across baseball. The BBA has quickly grown to its current membership of 256 blogs, including some of the most prominent blogs on the internet, spanning all major league teams and various other general aspects of the game.

Nothing sparks debate better than a list of all time players and Mike Silva has stoked the fire of Mets fans hearts with his Top 50 All Time Mets list. I will be quite curious to read the comments on Mike site over this list as I found out with Kerrel Copper writing about retiring Ed Kranepool’s #7, there is a bit of a generation gap between the guys of my generation and the 20-30 something Mets fans. 2011 will be the 25th Anniversary of the 1986 World Champs, that means the twenty something’s have never witnessed a Mets parade down the Canyon of Heroes (my old ass has seen both Mets parades) and the thirty something’s have a vague memory of the festive day on Broadway. I don’t blame the younger Mets fans for getting tired of old farts like myself waxing poetic about the Mets of yesteryear but then again don’t discount the players of the era either.

By the way, I e-mailed Mike with my displeasure of John Franco being ranked higher that Ed Kranepool on his list. Same with Johan Santana at #20, a bit high. Tug McGraw and Rusty Staub should definitely be ranked higher than Santana. Jerry Grote at #30? Com’on way tooooooooo low and by the way all you kids better get off my lawn. What about George Theodore, Joel Youngblood, Ron Swoboda, Ron Hunt and Dennis Ribant, okay Ribant is a reach.

The best part about the end of the holidays is that the Mets front office should be open for business next week and maybe we can start seeing some signings or trades for pitchers. Yeah I’m beyond antsy.

I hope you are all enjoying this St Stephen’s (my namesake) Day nice and warm as we here in NYC are looking at a foot-foot and half of snow with blizzards conditions tonight which should make the morning commute just a joy.

Of course there is no Mets news but I did read an interesting post today by my buddy Mike Silva, where he ranks his top ten Mets teams of all time. As I commented on Mike’s site, it’s hard not to just award the top two spots on this kind of list to the 1969 and 1986 Mets, as they are the only teams to bring home a championship trophy to Queens.

Silva mentions the 1997 team in his honorable emotions and when you look at that team, there are some much underrated players in Mets history on the roster. Todd Hundley doesn’t get the mentions he should as his spilt with the club was not amicable, as he lost his job for the fact that Mike Piazza was a catcher and when he was asked to move to the outfield he was offended and really didn’t help himself with his playing left like a kid given a plate of Brussels sprouts. It wasn’t all Hundley’s fault as the front office didn’t handle the situation as they should, such as dealing Hundley.

That team could get on base led by John Olerud with a .400 OBA followed by Hundley at .394 (and a team leading OPS of .943 on the strength of 30 homers) Edgardo Alfonzo at .391 and Lance Johnson at .385

The pitching was good too led by Bobby Jones and his 15 wins and Rick Reed who won 13 games was the ace of the staff. The bullpen led by John Franco closing out games and Greg McMichale taking care of the 8th inning moved this club to a +17 over the ’96 team in the win column in Bobby Valentine’ first full season as Mets manager.

Besides the World Series winners, who do you think were the best teams in Mets history?

So now that our weekend of fun (no Highlanders or Phuck Phaces in the World Series) and we await what I think will be a terrific World Series, it’s time to look at what is taking so long for the Skill Sets to figure out who will be the next leader of the baseball operations.

On Mets Minor League Blog, they feel it’s up to Uncle Saul as to who will get the GM job. Freddy Skill Sets is in the pro-Alderson camp, while Jeffey is leaning towards Josh Byrnes due to both of them being similar age. It’s this kind of bullshit that brings out the nastiness in me when it comes to Jeffey, he’s done this with players (Al Leiter, John Franco and Tom Glavine) he did it with Omar and with John Ricco as well. Doesn’t this little shit have friends of his own? But then again who would want to be friends with this dolt? So the third and final vote comes down to Uncle Saul Katz. Whoever Uncle Saul picks most likely will be the next American Idol Mets GM. Why do I have the feeling the Skill Sets will fuck this up?

Sometimes I just can’t figure out our fan base. Daniel Murphy is back playing after a devastating knee injury. He’s playing 2nd bas in the Dominican League and from some of the stuff I read on Twitter you’d think that Murphy is solely responsible for the suckitude of the franchise. Am I saying that Murph is the answer at 2nd base ? No. But I see no reason why he and Nick Evans can’t be viable bench pieces next season. What I can’t understand is, Murphy is the kind of player most Mets fans feel the team needs. He shows up to spring training with the pitchers and catcher. He will play any place the manager asks him. He plays that balls to wall hustle that it seems the majority of the fan base is clamoring for, so tell me all you Murphy haters out there, what is it that bothers you about him? I know he’s a player without a position but as a sub or spot starter, I feel Murphy would make a solid contribution to this team. The comments section is now open for all of you to let me know how much of an asshole I am over this.

Day/Nighter today and I was sooooo ready to cut work and head to Flushing to watch Santana do his magic, but my desk is piled as high with cases as thick as Fernando Martinez’ medical folder, So I’ll pass on going to the game to spend the afternoon with Howie, Wayne and my un-fucking-believable case load. So while you wait for Game 1 some great links to peruse:

Ed Ryan at Mets Fever feels the time is right to bring back Bobby Parnell and his high heat to bolster the bullpen. I agree as it my be time to send Ryota Igarhashi down and when John Maine comes back, stick him in the pen as well. To make room for Maine, the Mets can put Fernando Nieve on the DL saying he is suffering from exhaustion. No one will dispute that.

Memo to David Stern: Your thieving bastard refs are ruining the NBA Finals. When they are not gambling and throwing games or trading first class airline tickets for coach seats and pocketing the difference, they all but destroy the flow of the game and are so inconsistent with their calls that I don’t know what is and isn’t a foul anymore. And to you Mike Breen, your lucky I’m not working with you as I’d have punched you in the head by now you referee toady suck up.

When I first heard about Tony Bernazard went off on the Bingo Mets especially Jose Coronado I admit to laughing my ass off. All I could do was picture in my mind Tony B whipping off his silk shirt and standing in the middle of the clubhouse in a wife beater calling out Coronado, “Yo maricon, who a piece of me”? But when I settled down I realized what an embarrassment this guy has become and the fact that he hasnâ€™t at least been suspended until a formal hearing by the Skill Sets to determine if he should be terminated is even more outrageous.

Someone or a bunch of folks are tired of Bernazardâ€™ act and have been feeding Adam Rubin story after story and even as ignorant as Jeffey Skill Sets is he has to be contemplating firing Bernazard. The problem here is Jeffey has a big man crush on Tony B because he is everything Jeffey wishes he could be. The only difference between Marlins Pres David Samson (another annoying little shit) and Jeffey is the Fish have two World Championships under Samson rein of ridiculousness.

Jeffey is so weak and players and guys like Bernazard see that and play him like a fiddle. Look at all the knuckle heads who have been in the Jeffey Love Nest, John Franco, Rosalita Lieter, Titan Tom Glavine and of course Tony B. Jeffey is as easy to get over on as the fat chick going stag to the High School prom. Itâ€™s that weakness of character that is bringing down the organization.

The baseball world is laughing at the Mets and itâ€™s Mets fans who are taking it the worst.

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